


Reprise

by spacemonkey



Category: U2 (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-14
Updated: 2020-11-14
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:41:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27555514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacemonkey/pseuds/spacemonkey
Summary: Hi all, this took me all of twenty minutes to write and I'm not sure what happened here but I felt the need (the need for speed???) to do something, anything so here we are. It's not much, it's weird but it happened and I have to deal with that now, so um..yes. Love?
Relationships: Bono/The Edge (U2)
Kudos: 12





	Reprise

**Author's Note:**

> Hi all, this took me all of twenty minutes to write and I'm not sure what happened here but I felt the need (the need for speed???) to do something, anything so here we are. It's not much, it's weird but it happened and I have to deal with that now, so um..yes. Love?

There are certain things Edge does his best to push aside. Thoughts. Questions. Tempting ideas that come creeping in the dead of the night or whenever they dare to land. (He doesn’t have a choice. He might have once, when it was just a faint awareness that sometimes lingered in his mind.) Sentences that are almost said, then held back in the nick of time.

He clears his throat, turns to whatever distraction he can find, and ignores that probing look being sent his way. He stays silent, doesn’t glance away, and allows himself to be surveyed. He smiles, and Bono smiles back.

Three possibilities, three potential reactions. Edge knows so well how to lie to himself after all this time. (He doesn’t have a choice. He might have once, when it was just a faint awareness still too frightened to do little more than linger in the back of his mind.) It’s becoming harder to look away. (Had it ever been easy?)

There are certain things Edge does his best to push aside.

* * *

Don’t get emotionally involved, Edge tells himself in the dead of the night (words that have absolutely no effect, that likely never would have worked).

The fantasy of a path that remains untravelled, he knows, is a terrible thing to consider even when he's at his strongest. That way dragons lie. Why change what has worked well for so long? Why bring anything more into the equation?

Don’t get emotionally involved, he tells himself while imagining fingertips against his skin, justifications already coming to mind. Loneliness, deprivation (they’re just words without meaning, aren’t they?)

It’s not him that starts it, in the dead of the night when he’s alone. It’s not him that reaches out a hand to touch, or trails down his body with soft lips, messy hair. That’s what makes it okay.

But he’s really done it this time. He’s fucked it all up. Night will always turn into day—that’s an indisputable fact (darkness spilling into light). Sometimes, however, after Edge has forgotten outside exists, he’ll mix the two up, and he’s not the only one.

Don’t get emotionally involved, he tells himself when he thinks it’s the dead of the night (words that have absolutely no effect when it’s just the two of them, alone with a bottle of drink to share).

It’s him that starts it. He doesn't have a choice (he never did).

* * *

It’s an age-old question: what would you do if you could go back in time? Would you stop Hitler? Reunite with a lost loved one, or meet a relative you never knew? See that band in concert?

(Bono would do it all, Edge knows. Try to save the world, trace his way through the family line for a story or two, see John and Paul up on stage, drowned out by all the noise. Hold his mother’s hand. See himself in her smile. The sky is the limit with him, and he would not stop even upon hearing the word _no_.)

If prompted in a public setting, Edge would likely go for the noble, proper option. Change the world, alter history, save millions of lives.

In private, however, he realizes he is only one man. A selfish one at that, when it comes down to it. Not when considering most things, no. Just a small selection. Love, not life.

He would walk in front of traffic to save a handful of people. He would keep the world exactly the same as long as he could hold a few hands (but kiss only one set of fingertips), see his universe in a smile.

If he could go back in time, he would tell his younger self to stop being so hesitant, to take that step sooner. There is only one way their story is destined to turn out. In the end, they come out on top. He knows this from experience. He understands what it’s like to wait, to lose a few years, a chapter or two, to fear.

Past, present, future—it's all heading somewhere they already know.


End file.
